


bring my body to shore, my love

by millimallow



Series: the world of owa [21]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Gen, descriptions of body parts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 13:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18099221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/millimallow/pseuds/millimallow
Summary: we're not meant for the sea, not yet





	bring my body to shore, my love

if magic never changes, old lessons never go astray. everyone knows, from mossburg to lidolai and murentz bres, that once you’ve lost something in the cursed ocean it’s gone. whether it be a person or a possession- give up your hopes of looking for it. claim it if it turns up, leave it to go if it never does. don’t think of it too much, or send someone else looking. when things are lost in the cursed sea, they never come back intact, not if you’re looking. maybe if you don’t, they’ll wash up on shore.

i’m the guy who stands in the way of you and the shore.

it’s not pretty work. living a while out of the capital city, without any agricultural or industrial income to be made on fair terms, money is hard to come by. what i do, i do to survive. especially through the summer months, when people want anything to do with the seas themselves regardless of connection to such a grisly profession. there are less bodies in the summer as well, owing to better weather and sailing conditions for those willing to brave the channel. even my luck is saved up for the season where my business becomes unprofitable.

this work is what it sounds like- at best, picking lost objects up from the shore. trinkets, rations and weapons are the most likely to survive saltwater, as long as they’re protected and arrive soon enough after their loss. at worst you’re stripping people for valuables. not in the other sense of stripping, unless their clothes are valuable and unbloodied, though the difference is mostly in terms of purpose. you start with the head, inspecting for piercings, moving into the mouth to check for false teeth and dentures that carry metal of some value. extract all of these. hats are almost always lost, but wigs and hair can be cleaned and used to stuff pillows. take this as well. then move onto the body. check the clothes again. jewel-encrusted or embroidered- valuable. belonging to an officer of naval rank? perhaps even more valuable, considering recent political and military fragility. white clothes soaked through with blood are the only thing considered unsellable- others you’ll just have a hard time with. people are fairly squeamish about wearing the clothes of a dead man. so, worst case scenario, you can repurpose them with a little white lie. do the same with the legs and the boots, which appropriate many conditions of value. of course the more valuable comes along the most rarely, i shouldn’t fail to tell you. naval officers rarely die in great numbers, more valuable than their shipmates. and any reasonable individual is wary of taking their valuables out onto the cursed sea- if they must die, taking their retirement with them hardly feels sensible unless they have some vengeance against their family.

there is no point in taking these things without a suitable buyer. the value of all things is determined by desire and scarcity. why do the rich want silver and gold when they have no spells to cast with it? because it is hard to obtain and beautiful to look at. your buyers are not the rich, though. you will meet your buyers in the shady, run-down houses that line the residential streets. it’s rare they live in the house they occupy- moving around helps protect their privacy, prevents them being known as an individual who has their hands on valuable items. uninhabited, they’re empty shells which can be possessed and discarded as necessary. it doesn’t do much for the décor, especially when the buyers are often chain-smokers and disreputable types. go down to their cellars and you will no doubt find the bones of a man, stained yellow. i should not talk ill about them, however, because most are honest men. they will pay you a fair price and sell your goods on, inevitably for a greater price, the commission they take. buying from someone like me is of course illegal- buying from a middleman makes it undetectable by the law and their intrusive eyes. lower-value items are sometimes purchased directly by the poor, who have no qualms with their potential arrest.

in the end, you have to show your work respect. whether it be dirty, violent or illicit, it provides for you in the way that is necessary for your survival. each body i dredge up from the sea was once an individual- their unfortunate end does not strip them of their dignity. so once their hair is cut for pillows and their clothes are removed for rags, you find something to do with their body. toss it into the ocean and it washes up again to frighten some poor child later on in the year. only the shadiest butchers will prepare the meat of a person, even if only for the feed of a dog. sometimes i do it myself- so far i’ve resisted the temptation to eat the flesh of a person, but there’s no distinction that matters for animals. sometimes they complain of its saltiness, but most will eat it anyway. amongst hungry people are even hungier canines. and when there’s nothing left to do with a body, i bury it.

to the north of the coast you can find patchy grassland. sheep are farmed there, and you can catch wild rabbits if you’re quick and your aim is sufficient. few people go off the road- a road which goes through this land and into the forests that lie ahead. well, i do. take the shovel to the dirt and dig it up in clumps, near the base of a tree, and lie a piece of the body down. now move the dirt into the hole you’ve created, obscuring the body part. repeat the process with each piece you’ve found and managed to save. don’t bother marking them, but do remember them. when you come back, you may find that the trees grow stronger and taller where life met its end.

 


End file.
